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stranger. In the second place, he was basically more flexible than O'Brien. He could survive the shock of
trans-plantation, rally, and even thrive if things went right. But he was worried about O'Brien.
9
Two hours later, after being lost a dozen times, they came out on the main highway, thekadziiwa'
road. A half-mile away was a large number of soldiers. Even as Two Hawks watched them, they took a
man from a car and marched him off to a tent at one side of the road.
"Checking for spies and deserters," Two Hawks said. "All right; we'll go around them."
That was not so easy. They had to cut across a shallow creek a mile away. They drove through
slowly without getting stuck only to be stopped five minutes later by a stone fence which seemed to run
to both horizons. By then, dawn had come. The car paralleled the fence for a mile and a half, which
finally run out. However, a dense grove of trees and a broad creek further barred them.
Two Hawks drove the vehicle into the stream, which was about thirty yards wide. They plowed
ahead for ten yards with the water beginning to seep from under the doors. Then the car stopped, its
wheels spinning. Nothing after that could get it out of the mud.
"We'll hoof it," Two Hawks said. "Maybe it's just as well the car got stuck. If we'd gone on, and
the water got too deep, the boiler might've blown up."
"Now you tell me! Let's get to hell out of here!"
They traveled over the farm country paralleling the high-way. Four days later, the paved portion
ran out. From there on, the road was dirt.
The two ate from food stolen from the peasants. Two days passed. They had a chance to steal a
car, an internal-combustion type, and they took it. They made thirty miles that day, cutting along the side
of the road, blowing their horn at the refugees in their path. Then, hearing of a check station ahead, they
turned on to a narrow dirt rural road. When they had run out of gas, they continued on foot.
"The nation of Itskapintik is to the north," he told O'Brien. "The last I heard, it was neutral. We'll
cross the border and throw ourselves on whatever mercy they have."
"I don't like the way you said that," O'Brien said. "What kind of people are they?"
"Basically, Indians with a lot of white genes. They speak a language belonging to the Nahuatl
family, something like the Aztec speech of Mexico. They're much like the Aztecs, in fact. They came out
of Asia about the same time as the Iroquois, both pushed out by a powerful Amerind nation that later
conquered half of northern Asia.
"The Itskapintik defeated another tribe, half-white, half-Amerind, that had just finished terrorizing
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eastern Europe. The Iskapintik slaughtered half of them and enslaved the rest."
"They're pretty rough, huh?"
"Igot that impression. For instance, it was only fifty years ago that they quit sacrificing people at
religious ceremonies. And their slaves are not only treated as sub-humans but have no chance of
becoming freemen, as they do among the Hotinohsonih."
"Then why are we going there?"
"Not really with the idea of throwing ourselves on their mercy. We'll try to cut across the country,
hide from them, travel at night. Our goal will be Tyrsland, Earth 1's Sweden. Perkunisha has declared
war against Tyrsland, but it's not made any belligerent moves against it. If we could get there, we could
arrange to be transported to Blodland. We'd be important men there; we'd really have something to live
for."
"Sweet Mother of Christ! I'd give my right eye to live in a place where they speak English."
"I don't want to discourage you." Two Hawks said. "But you'd have to learn it all over again.
However, it would be easier for you than Iroquoian."
They had been cutting across the back-country, using rural roads as guides but keeping parallel
with them. Only at night, when the roads were deserted, did they take to them. Even then, Two Hawks
did so reluctantly. But walking on fields of wheat or meadows or through the woods slowed them down
so much that they had to chance the swifter means of travel now and then. Fifteen days after leaving
'Estokwa, they came across a main highway, going north. From the hilltop, he could see that the great
river of refugees had not diminished. At this point there were no soldiers evident, so he decided that it
would be safe to mingle with the traffic.
For two days they trudged along on the fringe of the column, finding that they could make better
time this way. The dawn of the third day, they heard cannonfire to the west. By night-fall, the rattle of
small firearms came from a distance. The next day, Hotinohsonih troops appeared. They were
reinforce-ments from the south, headed for the northwest where a battle raged. Two Hawks and O'Brien
went back into the middle of the refugee column to make themselves inconspicuous. Be-sides, the
reckless speed of the military vehicles on the side of the road made travel there dangerous.
The fourth day, at noon, the refugees were diverted east-ward at a crossroads. Two Hawks
said, "The Perkunishans must have taken the road up ahead. They're really advancing.'
"I always thought the Iroquois were mighty warriors." O'Brien said. "But they don't seem to be
doing any better than the Russians."
Two Hawks was a little irritated, as if criticism of the Hotinohsonih was, in a way, a criticism of
him. He knew that O'Brien always thought of him as an Indian and that, although never outwardly
disrespectful, he had his private opinions.
"I'll tell you one thing," Two Hawks said. "The Perkunishans may be winning, but they're paying a
hell of a higher price for it than the Germans did. War's a little different here. There aren't any Geneva
Conventions, you know. What a nation does with its prisoners of war is strictly its own business. The
Perkunishans have found out from previous experience that the Iroquois don't make good slaves. They
either keep on trying to escape or get killed trying.
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"So Perkunisha has declared a no-quarters war. No prisoners except when one is needed for
information. And they torture to get that information. The Hotinohsonih know this; they fight to the death.
And when they retreat, they kill their own wounded if they aren't able to carry them out. As a result, the
invaders are getting a much stiffer resistance than they other-wise would. But their superior technology
and their strategy of bypassing pockets of defenders behind to be mopped up later accounts for their
present speed. Plus the fact they're willing to suffer high casualties.
"You see, Perkunisha wants to conquer as much territory as possible before winter comes. This
land occupies the same area as southern Russia of Earth 1, without the relatively mild climate. Because of
the weak Gulf Current, Europe is subarctic cold in winter. That's another reason why we have to get to
Tyrsland before the snows come. We don't want to get caught in the open country then; we'd freeze to
death in short order."
O'Brien shivered and said, "Brother, what a world! If we had to go through a 'gate', why couldn't
we have been lucky and found a nice warm and peaceful world?"
Two Hawks smiled and shrugged. There might be such a 'parallel' Earth, but if so, they were not
in it. They had to live in the one luck had dealt them.
A few minutes later, they passed a car stuck in the soft earth on the side of the road. Three men
were trying to push it out. Two Hawks said, "Did you notice the woman at the wheel? She had a scarf
around her hair, and the face was pretty dirty. But I'll swear it was Ilmika Thorrsstein."
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